I expect the Greek economy is doing great right now from making money from the British. I also expect there is a lot of British pounds in the country that is being spent in Greece. And how much debt does the Greek government have now? Have they payed most of their national debt?
The Greek economy is doing quite well fortunately, but there will be both positives and negatives to this sudden influx of cash into the Greek market.
Greece's Debt ITTL is a bit complicated so I'll start from the beginning. The original wartime loans were about 3 million pounds (£800,000 in 1824 and £2,000,000 in 1825 respectively). The initial post war loans provided in the 1830 Treaty of London added another 2.4 million pounds to the Greek debt, and then the subsequent loans taken out between 1830 and 1840 amounted to another 2.5 million pounds from private money lenders like the Zosamides and Romaniote bankers, and foreign entities like Britain and France. Thankfully, the Greek economy improved dramatically in the 1840's, reducing the Greek Government's borrowing needs dramatically, with them only taking out another 1 million pounds between 1840 and 1857, giving Greece a total debt of around 8.7 million Pounds overall by the most recent update. However, it is important to note that the Greeks managed to successfully negotiate down their public debt with Britain on two separate occasions.
The first was in 1840 and regarded the original war time loans, which were initially recorded as 2.8 million pounds. However, the Greeks only ever received around 1.6 million in actuality, with the rest allegedly going towards servicing of the loans. While this is partially true, in reality most of the missing funds were taken by corrupt agents of the London Greek Committee and the two Greek Contracting Agents rather than the Provisional Greek Government. Once, the Greek Government could prove this discrepancy with evidence and facts, the British were forced to adjust their numbers accordingly to a fairer amount. Note this only effected the original 2.8 million Pounds taken during the War for Independence, it did not effect any of the Post War Loans. Similarly, the Greek Government negotiated a second adjustment in 1855 as part of the Clarendon-Kolokotronis Agreement (the treaty which ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece). While it wouldn't provide as significant a reduction in Greek debt as the 1840 Agreement, it would reduce the interest rate to a more reasonable level, down from 7.5% down to the originally agreed rate of 5%. Overall, these two deals would officially set the actual Greek debt at around 6.5 million Pounds Sterling.
Granted, this doesn't count the fact that Greece has been making steady payments on its debts over the years, nor does it account for the fact that the Greek economy has been doing very well as of late. It also helps that the Government's budget is rather small right now at only 8 to 10% of Greece's GDP, which while quite high for the time makes a bit of sense when you consider Greece very nearly came to blows with the Ottoman Empire recently. Now, using
@Lascaris amazing table in post
#3654 this would put the Government's spending at around 26 to 27 Million Drachma or roughly 1.1 million Pounds Sterling. Of this sum, the largest expense is currently the Hellenic Military which eats up around 60% of all Government spending (roughly ~£650,000) , while interest payments on the debt (~£300,000) and all other government expenses (~£150,000) split the remainder of the Government's budget between them. So I'd say they probably have somewhere between 1 million Pounds to 1.5 million Pounds left on their debt by 1857 ITTL. Granted this is just an educated guess as I haven't gone through TTL's Greek Government's expenses with a fine tooth comb so I might be underestimating - or overestimating - what they really owe.
Great update!
@Earl Marshal you forgot to threadmark it btw
Thank you and done!
A wonderful new update!
Thessaly achieving its full potential is a big deal, and probably the largest blessing Greece has received from their new territories. In our history, due to the economic mismanagement, Thessaly was a backwater for a long long time. It becoming 'one of the most prosperous provinces of greece' is a startling improvement. A bit of a shame about Epirus not experiencing quite the same boost, but the land is simply poorer, and until greece is significantly more industrialized, farming will dominate the economy.
Rhodes is a nice benefit for strategic reasons, more than for its economic benefits, though those exists. The ottoman naval command, such as it is, must be drinking themselves to death considering how difficult it will be to prevent a devastating greek blockade in the case of war.
The Ionian islands are the second largest gain here, just in economic and population terms. I would say that a highly populated set of islands is worth significantly more to greece than an equivalently populated stretch of inland area. Since the coastal sections aren't just richer, they also contribute to Greece's naval might, and expand the merchant marine. And we've seen that the merchant marine can quickly become a navy. A ton of well trained sailors never hurt anyone either.
A question, is the Ionian islands the richest, per capita, part of greece at the moment? since they were rather well off. Also, due to greece having a large steamship merchant marine, would those ships be impressed in times of war? Since it would just be funny if greece has more steamships in their *merchant fleet* than the ottomans have in total
It will take some time, but Thessaly will definitely become a powerhouse in its own right, I did call it the "
Breadbasket of Hellas" for a reason after all. Epirus will unfortunately lag behind as its more mountainous terrain simply makes its impossible to achieve the same results. That's not to say that there won't be success stories in Epirus, only that they will be fewer and farther between than in Thessaly.
Indeed, the true value of the Dodecanese lies in their strategic location rather than their economic benefits - although those also help. Combined with the Cyclades and Crete, the Aegean is effectively a Greek Lake which will definitely cause problems for the Turks in the future.
The Ionian Islands are definitely up there for richest and most populated provinces in all of Greece, with Attica-Boeotia being a close second.
Probably not gonna happen but god I hope the Ottomans get some pay back for these humiliations cause at this point their due a win at some point.
It may happen, since it wouldn't be too entertaining if the Greeks won everything ITTL.
The Maltese Corfiotes were already a tiny demographic. We’re talking about a group that was about a thousand in 1901. I’m not sure a few dozen or maybe hundred less people would force or encourage them to integrate easily now when they didn’t OTL. Plus as ugly as it is, it always seemed to me like the Greeks wanted to keep the Maltese Corfiotes separate as they were scape goated and blamed for many thing. People adore an other to hate after all. That said I don’t think it changes anything one way or another. Just surprised to see them mentioned only to be integrated.
Fun fact since we’re talking about the Maltese though, both Constantinople and Smyrna had small but healthy and growing communities of Maltese origins. Only a few thousand each but still existent.
Overall, they have a very small impact on the Ionian Islands and an even smaller effect on Greece. Honestly, I included them purely as a flourish to the Ionian Islands section of the last chapter.
Just a few notes. What passed for middle classes in Ottoman lands of the era tended to lean very heavily towards the Christian communities. Merchants, lawyers, pharmacists, physicians, artisans of all kinds? As late as 1922 and the population exchange you had the pre-war Ottoman middle class decimated in Anatolia from the loss of the Greeks and Armenians. Thessaly and Epirus have lost the people who run the Ottoman Era state administration and the chiflics, the people who were running the local mechanism of oppression if you will from the 5he local peasantry's point of view. But the village store owner, or the Athens/Corfu/Italian trained doctor in Larisa or Ioannina? He's most likely Greek in the first place.
In the particular case of Epirus due to the limited resources of the land it also to produce a higher than average number of people in the Greek diaspora and 5he middle educated classes. Thus union with Greece brings both the homes of these people as some very notable schools the
Zosimaia school of Ioannina most notably into Greece. What arguably Epirus needs in the coming era of infrastructure building is the railroads to extend to it, both from Thessaly and Western Greece. As actually planned. Which with a Greece more than two times as rich as the OTL 1881 Greece on the same mainland area should be entirely feasible. And would be getting diaspora investment from 5he likes of the Averof, Tositsas, Zosimas, Stournaris... all of them Epirote Greeks.
As a last note hope there is no stupidity about closing the Ionian academy TTL. After all the Greek state can most certainly afford a second university here...
Lascaris describes pretty accurately the social situation in Epirus and Thessaly. Pretty much almost all artisans, merchants, teachers or other high-skilled professionals were Greeks. In the case of Epirus, the only other ethnic group that produced a lot of artisans were the Romaniote Jews.
When it comes to trade, the Epirotan Greeks since the 18th century had established mercantile houses in Constantinople, Smyrna, Venice, Trieste, Bucharest, Livorno, Marseille, Moscow and Moldavia/Bessarabia. Another aspect of greek trade that is not as glamorous as the Chian Network of shipowners were the caravans that plied the Balkans. In the pre-railroad era, Greeks most of whom were from Epirus and Western Macedonia were running caravans that connected the Balkans with the Habsburg Monarchy and the Danubian Principalities. The greek mercantile colonies in central Europe from Vienna to Braila were comprised mostly of Epirotan Greeks.
Another minor detail is the climate of Epirus. It is not just the epirotan shore, but the whole region receives a lot of rainfall. Most of rain-bearing clouds in Greeks come from the west. The Pindus Mountains stop a lot of them and this is how Epirus and the Ionian Islands receive so much rainfall. Basically Epirus receives almost 3 times more water than Attica.
There is one issue that is gnawing at me when it comes to Epirus: land ownership. As the author mentioned, Epirus is a mountainous region with precious little arable land. A significant percentage of
good agricultural land lies in the coastal region of
Thesprotia. In that region there was the greatest concentration of chifliks and their serfs were muslim Cham Albanians. While there is no doubt that the landlords will have packed and departed, I think there would have been a struggle between the local muslim serfs and christian serfs (both Albanian and Greeks) from nearby communities or mountain clans (e.g. Souliotes) that -as most hill tribes in history- want to move to lowlands. This is an issue despite the official policies of the Greek Kingdom, since the rebellious christians are armed. Moreover, even before the war the ottoman garrisons were located in the cities (Giannena, Argyrokastro) where they have been contained during the Crimean War. I think the armed rebels will have conquered the lowlands of Thesprotia from both the landowners and Cham serfs. The landless christians would have tried their best to evict both landlords and muslim serfs in lowland Thesprotia.
In general, this is a story that applies broadly in Ottoman Balkans. Many authors often describe the conflicts erroneously as a simple conflict between religions and rising nationalisms. However, there is a strong social class aspect that is different in each Balkan region. There is conflict between burghers and rural populations (e.g. greek burghers, slavic farmers), between farmers and pastoralists, between serfs and landlords, between lowlanders and highlanders. The conflict over control of arable land was a common theme from Moldavia to the Peloponnese.
Edit: The links I I had posted don't work so here are the links I wanted to show
en.wikipedia.org
Honestly, I'm not sure what happened as I knew for a fact that the Greeks dominated the Ottoman Empire's middle class. I guess I just forgot in this last chapter. Anyway, I've tried adjusting the last chapter to better reflect this, hopefully its better now.
One thing I should probably point out is that most of my sources are in English and that most sources I have don't really cover this particular area of the Balkans in this particular time period with much detail. I've tried going through a few Greek sources, but my comprehension of the Greek language is shoddy at best. Honestly, I probably need to have someone review my Greek centric updates so as to avoid making these mistakes over and over again.
The greek border lies at platamonas..hmm greece can almost smell and see the queen of the thermaic gulf.
Now with the greek expansion the Corinth canal is now the top priority of the greek government because the fastest way from Athens to Western greece right now is by ship making the Corinth canal especially important and now with trade with western greece increasing ships from the Aegean would carry food and tools from the east and cheese ,leather products and other manufactured stuff from epirus and wine from the Ionian islands
Indeed, I modeled the border in Thessaly off of the OTL border which coincidentally started/ended at Platamon as well.
The Canal will definitely be a major boon for the Hellenic navy if nothing else.
On a side note does greece have an area that produces charcoal in any noticeable amount?
They probably have some charcoal production in Epirus, specifically the more forested regions of Epirus. How much and where exactly, I haven't decided yet.
Hey how about Greeks be the one inventing the Dreadnought instead of the British? A Greek naval engineer designing the ship due to the immense fear in the Greek navy about the huge British naval power and if they ever have to fight it. So, he goes on to design a ship that has the ability to pulverise any enemy ironclads or weak pre-dreadnoughts roaming near Greek borders in a war.
I also hope some of the inventions, invented by Greek scientists here because of butterflies.
Other than that, I really liked your TL
.
While having pre-Hydras, Hydras, super-Hydras has a certain appeal to me I must question the part about the immense fear of the Greek navy over the feet that is supposed to be their closest ally if for no other reason because they cannot afford it not to be.
If the Greeks were gonna be at the forefront of a naval technology, submarines seem like a likely target. That’s a great equalizer regardless of country size
Someone would note that the OTL Greeks were the first navy to do a submarine torpedo attack and the first navy to use aircraft to bomb enemy ships.
Torpedo tech isn’t there till after ww1 but yeah subs will be good as commerce raiders
Yeah, I just threw out a reason for the invention
but it would be quite cool to see them been the ones inventing it ya know. Even though they might only build 1 or 2 Dreadnoughts due to their much smaller economy compared to Great Powers.
On the topic of colonies, I can only see Cyrenaica been the area they colonise and maybe some islands around Africa.
I'm with
@Lascaris on this in saying that Greece probably won't invent dreadnoughts in this timeline. That being said, they will develop something equally important if not more so in terms of naval innovations. I could tell you now, but that wouldn't be very fun now, would it?
For greece there is very little point of 'colonizing' anything outside the Mediterranean. If you count a colony as a place where you can send excess population, gather extra natural resources, and have a captive market, then Greece has its hands full and more 'colonizing' the balkans and Anatolia, and maybe the levant and North Africa if they want to overextend a little.
I think it is possible for Greece to keep Cyrenaica. It would be a place for Greeks to migrate outside of the U.S and Europe. Also Cyrenaica has oil that Greece will need to stay rich in the future. They can also give the Natives the same rights as Greeks to integrate them in the Kingdom of Greece.
I mean I think this has been covered pretty heavily before. But yes the same resources they’d use to colonize are generally the same they’d need to develop and claim more of the home land. Cyrenaica I can see working well if they focus heavily on the costal settlements. There doesn’t need to be a huge diversion of population if the Greeks spend some cash to incentivize or help other Christians to move there. As an example I’m sure plenty of Assyrian Christians might move if they were given the chance. Focus on the cities, offer incentives for converting, offer free Greek schooling to everyone who wants it, and you could develop an area that stays with Greece. Honestly out of all of North Africa, Cyrenaica might be the easiest to keep as part of Europe. At least part of it. I know people keep bringing up the oil but I don’t think they know of that currently, and the interior is significantly harder to hold than the costal cities.
Past that I can see some colonial ventures coming about, but not for settling. I could see the Greeks trying to grab a port or two in Africa for coaling and trade purposes. Something like Zanzibar is a gateway to East African trade if that’s something the Greeks want to try and get involved with. Although I’m not sure how or if the Scramble for Africa is going down in this timeline. We could see something much more restrained than the OTL Scramble though, and negotiating for a small Greek quarter might check off all of the boxes needed to take a nice chunk of East African trade in that case.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Greeks attempted to become a part of the Shanghai international settlement in this timeline. That might sound absurd at first but I’m merely suggesting they make a treaty with China to become part of what the British have already set up, not take a treaty port of their own. Switzerland and Peru had similar agreements otl so it’s not like Greece couldn’t join. Italy was a part of it as well and we seem to be using that as a decent benchmark for Greece ITTL. I don’t think much comes of it but I could sea it happening, especially if Greece is trying to become a trade powerhouse.
Earl Marshall mentioned he was toying with the idea of a coaling station on an island in the Red Sea, but depending on Greek and Egyptian relations who knows if that’s even needed. But it’s hardly a bad idea, especially if they are trying to take part in either or both of the trade ventures I’ve talked about.
Besides all that I’m still holding out hope for the Greek Desolation Islands lmao.
I've addressed Greek colonies before and won't go into much detail here, but basically, I'm of the opinion that they won't really establish a global empire along the lines of Britain or France. If they do, it would only be to secure a small handful of useless rocks for prestige purposes and to serve as coaling stations/resupply stations for their maritime fleet. Beyond that, most of their interests lie in the Mediterranean, specifically the Balkans and Anatolia. Now that doesn't mean that they won't try for something further afield, merely that their priorities are closer to home.
Great Update!
I 'd love, though, to read a few more details on the Union of the Ionian Islands with Greece.
1. IOTL the British tried to keep Corfu as a colony, and when that failed they put a clause in the treaty of union, by which Corfu was declared neutral, and they also demolished a large part of the town's formitable fortifications. Perhaps the neutrality is avoided since ITTL Greece holds all the shore across from the island, but on the other hand Corfu's strategic position is dictating that the RN would have a free hand in the region, something which could be tricky if Corfu is in hostile hands.
2. What about the Ionian University? IOTL the Greek state shut it down, with the excuse that could not financialy afford maintaining two universities. As ITTL Greece is doing much better economically, is the Ionian University safe? Will it become the cradle of academic liberalism, and what will be the effect on the Glosssiko Zitima (Language Dispute)?
3. The Ionian islands and especially Corfu are areas of feudal-style land ownership. IOTL that caused a lot of political issues, from political radicalism (many of the first socialists appeared in Corfu) to political manipulation of the peasant voters by the landlords. What will be the development ITTL, and what effect will it have to the appearance of political figures which IOTL were very influencial nationwide (as George Theotokis, Dinos Theotokis, Lorentzo Mavillis, K. Zavitsianos, etc)
4. With an earlier union and the subsequent morginalization of Corfu from a capital city to a provincial centre, how would the local culture develop? IOTL Corfu was very influential in the Arts and Literature.
5. What about he Ionian Bank? IOTL its money printing privilege was maintained for decades by the union treaty and produced some issues for the monetary policy of Greece, as the IB was controlled by British investors.
Thank you in advance
I can at least answer your first point somewhat despite not being the author. From an earlier update :
The basing rights were extended 5 years because of the Greek smuggling during the war to 1870 as well.
1.
@Duke of Orlando covered the first point quite well. As part of the Clarendon-Kolokotronis Treaty of 1855, Britain received naval basing rights within the port of Corfu for a period of 10 years initially. This was later extended to 20 years during the 1857 Paris Peace Conference, but then negotiated down to 15 years, meaning it would now end in 1870 as opposed to the original 1865.
2. The Ionian Academy is still open ITTL as the University of Athens has been established for quite some time now and has its own staff of talented professors and doctors. Now there probably will be a shakeup in the administration and organization of the Academy to bring it in line with the Greek Education system, but it won't be shut down.
3. I've adjusted the last chapter to better reflect this.
4. I'm sure Corfu will still be an important art center in Greece, but it will likely pale in comparison to Athens.
5. That might be a problem and one that I will address in the next chapter conveniently.
Are Russians going to be immigrating to Greece for better opportunities? And because of the strong Greek economy and shared religion.
It was the other way round in OTL. The only Russians I can see immigrating to Greece is brides of Greek migrants in Russia. Or the occasional radical maybe.
I now have this image in my head of a tired bureaucrat sighing as he prepares to fill out the deportation forms of this months set of radical rebel rousers. Next to him is a paper detailing the street fights in Athens between some exiled militant Russian Smithite Capitalists and the Newest group of exiled militant Russian Marxists. In Fifty years his grandson will stumble upon his journals, and be inspired to write a hit musical about two teenagers on opposite sides of the conflict finding love despite their different economic upbringings. Unfortunately the violence strikes the young lovers down before they can escape the crazy conflict. It’s called Greek Side Story.
You all might be rolling your eyes right now but it’s gonna happen. Along with the Greek Desolation Islands!
Edit: to add a little more meat to this post I will say I actually could see the Russians using Greece as a dumping ground for political undesirables if their relationship deteriorated enough. Maybe some democracy advocates immigrate on their own as well.
If there are any immigrating to Greece, they are likely few and far between.
@Duke of Orlando that's hilarious, I'm totally gonna steal that and use that in here at some point!
I'm wondering how the Greek Military has advanced and changed since just after the Independence/Revolution War. I'd imagine the Greek Military has been paying close attention to the latest Russo-Turkish war.
They've made some reforms and modernizations over the past three decades, but being at peace - mostly - for a solid 27 years will definitely dull their blades.
